A Page on the World

Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century

Mark Leonard makes the case for a Europe that few Americans will regard as reality.

Reviewed by John Ross Schroeder

Why does World News and Prophecy publish so much material about Europe? Kirsty Milne, a British expatriate living in Boston and teaching at Harvard, recently observed: "It is astonishing how little Americans know or care about the European Union... The brutal truth is that most Americans do not think about Europe very much at all" (Scotland on Sunday, April 24, 2005). Yet our regular readers will understand that Bible prophecy shows that European affairs should be of the greatest concern to all Americans, not to mention the rest of the world. We hope to spread this vital message to as many readers as possible.

Mark Leonard, author of a new paperback, Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, is director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, where he covers transatlantic relations, the Mideast and the relationship between China and the European Union. He paints a completely different futuristic picture of Europe from that of the biblical book of Revelation.

A new kind of power

He writes: "We can see a new kind of power [in the EU] has evolved that cannot be measured in terms of military budgets or smart missile technology. It works in the long term, and is about reshaping the world rather than winning short-term tussles [an oblique reference to the war in Iraq]" (p. 5).

This book sees each EU nation as subservient to the sovereignty of Brussels. For instance, "The British House of Commons, the British law courts and British civil servants are still there, but they have all become agents of the European Union" (p. 6, emphasis added throughout review). This is a frightening thought for those Britons who really understand the origins and prophetic destiny of the English-speaking peoples.

Further, the new European century is almost pictured as a coming utopia. "Imagine a world of peace, prosperity and democracy. A world where small countries are as sovereign as large ones, a world where what matters is that you obey the law—rather than whether you are with us or against us" (pp. 7-8).

From the point of view of biblical prophecy, this paperback draws deceptive conclusions like the following: "No one fears a rising Germany or France because all the countries of Europe have formed themselves into a network that is bound together by laws and regulations" (p. 27). (See the booklets advertised below.)

Trouble is, when an enormous crisis emerges in a key European country, the practical effectiveness of all these laws can virtually disappear almost overnight. All the democratic countries surrounding Nazi Germany could not stop Hitler from swallowing up Europe in the 1930s.

Still, Mr. Leonard insists that "the European project is based on a desire to move beyond a world of power politics, where 'might makes right,' to a community based on the rule of law" (p. 41). More utopianism!

Critical of the United States

The European agenda is constantly contrasted with the foreign policy of the United States. "The Bush Doctrine" comes under continuous criticism. According to Mr. Leonard, Europe seeks to escape from the shadow of American military doctrine. "Europe will never need to fight against the American military machine,'" he says. "Europeans can build peace through military interventions without mimicking the American way of war" (p. 66). How can one be so sure?

According to this author, we are entering a "post-American world." He writes: "American hegemony contains the seeds of its own destruction, and is already driving its own retreat" (p. 131). He further asserts: "The country most damaged by anti-Europeanism is America itself. Its need for Europe has never been greater: in Afghanistan the mission is under French command; in Iran, it is the Europeans who are leading the talks on WMD" (p. 132). There is an appendix (pp. 145-146) that shows the 109 countries the author considers to be part of the "Eurosphere"—meaning those nations already influenced to some degree by the EU.

Mark Leonard does not consider himself anti-American, but sees the United States as inevitably being "sucked into the process of integration" (p. 143), led by a new Euro World Order—heralding the emergence of a "New European Century."

This is not the only book published in the last few years espousing these views. Another one, Free World by noted British writer Timothy Garton Ash, is much less radical in approach, but still sees Europe as the answer to the world's problems. Still another one, written by an American, is as critical of the United States as Mr. Leonard's paperback.

These efforts to unify and exalt Europe among the nations—and to extend the influence of the EU far beyond its borders—will inevitably lead to a place where today's European intelligentsia would not go. To understand further, please request or download our free booklets You Can Understand Bible Prophecy and Are We Living in the Time of the End?

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